The Holy Spirit of My Uncle’s Cojones, Part 2

Tony and his Salvadoran-Appalachian family attend his uncle Jack’s funeral, where the mourners aren’t mourning–either the men are running in just to make sure he’s dead, and the two dozen women are lining up to look at their old lover one more time.

Here, we learn why Uncle Jack is so important to Tony–we go back into the past, when Tony, at age sixteen, pulled a knife over his wrist.

One of my goals with this book was to take on fear–the type of fear that paralyzes us, leaving us impotent to protect ourselves from predators. And I found that the best way to do that, was through comedy. This is a “contrarian” novel–a comedy about teenage suicide, an erotica novel with a strong family presence.